What is his heels (his nibs) in cribbage?

If the starter card cut after the discards is a jack, the dealer immediately scores 2 points for his heels — also called his nibs. Any suit of jack counts.

His heels is a bonus for the dealer only. Once both players have discarded to the crib, a starter card is cut from the deck. If it’s a jack — any suit — the dealer pegs 2 points on the spot, before any cards are played.

Those 2 points count right away, so his heels can win the game for a dealer sitting at 119 or 120.

Heels or nobs?

The two jack bonuses are easy to mix up:

His heels: the starter is a jack. The dealer scores 2, at once.
His nobs: you hold the jack that matches the starter’s suit. You score 1 when hands are counted; see what his nobs is.

The same jack can’t also score nobs: nobs is for holding the jack that matches the starter’s suit, and the starter can’t match itself. The non-dealer never scores heels, whatever the starter is.

How often it happens

Four of the 52 cards are jacks, so the starter is a jack about once every 13 hands. That makes his heels worth about 0.15 points a hand to the dealer, a small edge on top of owning the crib.

On Trindo

It is scored automatically the moment the starter is turned, and the game log records it as “scores 2 for his heels” under the dealer’s name. That is also a good moment to look at the whole two-player hand for what happens next.

Play Cribbage free →Invite a friend or practice with the computer. No sign-up.

What is his heels (his nibs) in cribbage?

Heels or nobs?

How often it happens

On Trindo

More Cribbage rules questions